Seth MacFarlane is fond of
taking any opportunity he can to harangue viewers with his belief that it is
entirely parents’ responsibility to protect their children from the
tastelessness and depravity crammed into every episode of his two cartoon
series, American Dad and Family Guy. Being an eternal adolescent
himself, MacFarlane frequently neglects to uphold his end of the bargain he
champions by refusing to rate his programs appropriately. And even if it is the
network’s duty to assign program ratings, surely MacFarlane, as the creator,
writer/producer and primary voice artist on two of Fox’s major programs, could
insist upon appropriate ratings if he so desired. Apparently, he chooses not to,
preferring to deluge his viewers with ever-more fetid examples of his warped
wit.

The episode of Family Guy
that aired Sunday, April 6th at 9:00 p.m. ET demonstrates this trend,
as it was rated TV14 D V L, contained a significant amount of sexual dialogue
and several sexual depictions, yet failed to carry an S-descriptor indicating
sexual content – an indicator which would enable parents to block sexually
explicit material from entering their homes.

The opening of the episode
titled “Blue Harvest” entails the Griffin family watching a golf tournament on
television. The two commentators are more focused on the cleavage belonging to
one of the golfer’s wives. "Look at that rack. There's a downhill lie for you!"
observes one of the commentators. "Oh, they're just begging to be touched.
Pleading. How many golf balls do you think she can fit in her mouth?" wonders
the second. When the power goes out, the family begins telling stories and a
Star Wars parody begins. Mr. Herbert, the neighborhood pedophile, plays Obi Wan
Kenobi. His sage advice to Luke Skywalker (played by Chris Griffin, the son) is
laced with double entendres and sexual innuendo. At one point, he is fighting
Stewie (as Darth Vader) and his lightsaber, clearly intended to denote a
phallus, goes limp -- until the youthful Luke/Chris walks in. The saber
immediately becomes stiff again. Quagmire, the neighborhood sex fiend, is
featured as C-3PO. C-3PO and Cleveland, as R2-D2 are shown strolling through
alien planets discussing robot sex. “Okay, here's another one. Who would you
rather do -- Jabba the Hutt after a shower or a service droid?” C-3PO asks
R2-D2. At one point they are on a spaceship that is being invaded. "Do you hear
that? It sounds like we're being boarded from the rear, and not the 'Hey, take a
deep breath, let's experiment' kind of boarded from the rear”, Quagmire observes
to his cohorts. At another point, Quagmire is shown simulating rear-entry sex
with Lois (who portrays Princess Leia).

The amount and nature of the
sexual content that this episode contained was too significant for it not to
have been flagged for sex, causing the PTC to ask Seth MacFarlane and Fox: “You
think you can rate a TV show?!”

If you agree that this program was inadequately
rated, please write to the TV ratings advisory board at
tvomb@usa.net and let them know that the TV
ratings once again failed to adequately warn parents about inappropriate
content.

Parents Television Council,
www.parentstv.org, PTC,
Clean Up TV Now, Because our children are watching, The
nation's most influential advocacy organization, Protecting
children against sex, violence and profanity in
entertainment, Parents Television Council Seal of Approval,
and Family Guide to Prime Time Television
are trademarks of the Parents Television Council.